[Mycroft Holmes]

Is it true that it takes far more energy to manufacture a photovoltaic cell than it will ever produce?

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According to The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a propaganda arm of the DOE, the energy break even point is 4 years for polycrystalline and 3 years for thin film. This is a pretty neat graph of the efficiency of various PV technologies. The more efficient the more costly.

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[Paladin2]

"The more efficient the more costly. "

Can't Congress make that illegal? Bend the cost curve?

[Prophet2520]

nice chart, thanks

[Robert A Cook PE]

And the effective lifetime of that PV cell array is little longer: Efficiency drops dramatically the first few months of exposure to the sun and environment, then levels off but keeps declining. So power produced is highest the first 3 months of the array’s lifetime, and it will never go up. After one year, most are producing 50-60% of the original nameplate rating.

A useful life of 12 to 14 years is about maximum.